Flight price fluctuations

ShappyShappy Posts: 14,531
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I've been looking at flight prices to New York for travel in about 6 weeks time. For the last week or so the prices have been around £430 but when I went to book this morning, they've jumped up to £700!

Has anyone else had this happen where the flight price has almost doubled overnight? I've used kayak, travelsupermaket, skyscanner, opodo and individual airline websites to search and they're all showing this doubling!

I'm not sure whether to wait and see if it goes down again or change my holiday to the week after (when prices are still around £430). It will be inconvenient to change my holiday dates so I'm reluctant to do that.
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  • AndrueAndrue Posts: 23,351
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    Shappy wrote: »
    I've been looking at flight prices to New York for travel in about 6 weeks time. For the last week or so the prices have been around £430 but when I went to book this morning, they've jumped up to £700!
    I haven't booked many flights but it's normal for prices to rise the closer you get to the actual date. It's all about managing capacity.
  • MaxatoriaMaxatoria Posts: 17,980
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    Currency conversion rates, the price of fuel both of which are normally fixed months in advance so probably the price of fuel has gone up as the previous fixed price has ended so a new one will be in place for a while.

    also supply and demand will factor in as the more seats available the lower the price to get them filled, its all a dynamic system which alters by the minute so if you do see a deal at a good price grab it
  • ShappyShappy Posts: 14,531
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    Andrue wrote: »
    I haven't booked many flights but it's normal for prices to rise the closer you get to the actual date. It's all about managing capacity.

    Sure, I'm just surprised it's gone up by almost £300 in one day. Surely it can't be nearly fully booked 6 weeks before departure that they'd put the prices up so much? It seems to be all flights around those dates, not just the one I'm looking at.
  • cris182cris182 Posts: 9,595
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    The cheaper seats are selling so the prices are going up. Book them now or they will get more expensive
  • ShappyShappy Posts: 14,531
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    cris182 wrote: »
    The cheaper seats are selling so the prices are going up. Book them now or they will get more expensive

    I don't want to pay £700 for a flight to NY. So I guess my only option is flying later in the year.
  • .Lauren..Lauren. Posts: 7,864
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    cris182 wrote: »
    The cheaper seats are selling so the prices are going up. Book them now or they will get more expensive

    Yep. They sells seats at a cheaper price, once they have gone it goes up to the ne t price band and so on. If seats still haven't sold a few days before the flight, only then will prices go down. But London - NYC is a very popular route, so they can almost guarantee they will fill the seats.

    I'd move your holiday to a few weeks later if you can and buy now.
  • ShappyShappy Posts: 14,531
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    I'm pretty familiar with flight pricing economics - I think it was the size of the jump that surprised me. They must be doing very well in terms of booking to be able to charge £700 on an economy NYC flight 6 weeks before departure.
  • KIIS102KIIS102 Posts: 8,538
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    No one has a clue how Flight prices work, people just guess.

    Don't worry about the £430 going upto £700 over night. It's happens all the time. I've been travelling for a long time. It will drop back down in a few days. But people are partially right, the prices do creep up closer to the actual day so try and book a few weeks ahead of what day you want to go.
  • ShappyShappy Posts: 14,531
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    KIIS102 wrote: »
    No one has a clue how Flight prices work, people just guess.

    Don't worry about the £430 going upto £700 over night. It's happens all the time. I've been travelling for a long time. It will drop back down in a few days. But people are partially right, the prices do creep up closer to the actual day so try and book a few weeks ahead of what day you want to go.

    Yes, I think I might wait a couple of days to see what happens. I've never seen such an extortionate price rise in one day! I can imagine it going up £100 or £150 but not £300. I would be happy to pay up to £550 but no more.
  • collincncollincn Posts: 650
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    You could try deleting cookies/history. I have heard tell that a price will go up if you've searched the same flight a few times, as you obviously want it :)

    I have no idea if this is true or not - please report back.
  • ShappyShappy Posts: 14,531
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    Yes, I've heard that thing about cookies before - I've asked others to search for me (on different computers) and they're getting the same £700 price.
  • Rich_LRich_L Posts: 6,110
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    Book (or look) directly at the airlines as opposed to price-comparison websites and see if it makes a difference?
  • LushnessLushness Posts: 38,158
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    The price will probably drop back down in a few days. I wouldn't write it off just yet.
  • walterwhitewalterwhite Posts: 56,564
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    collincn wrote: »
    You could try deleting cookies/history. I have heard tell that a price will go up if you've searched the same flight a few times, as you obviously want it :)

    I have no idea if this is true or not - please report back.

    That is absolute rubbish.
  • collincncollincn Posts: 650
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    That is absolute rubbish.

    I'm happy to take your word on that
  • ShappyShappy Posts: 14,531
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    Rich_L wrote: »
    Book (or look) directly at the airlines as opposed to price-comparison websites and see if it makes a difference?

    It's the same price on individual airline pages (Virgin, Delta, United etc.). The price is also £700 for travel dates well into October now so definitely something going on. That is two months to departure.
  • HypnosssHypnosss Posts: 1,203
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    I remember being quite shocked at how thr prices can change for the exact same dates.

    I would suggest going to the airline website and doing a searcb and selecting +/- 3 days if they have the option, then you can see the cheapest days to travel, sometimes a day or two can make a big difference.

    Also I have noticed that sometimes when the flight prices are expensive you can get a better flight/hotel combo deal on Expedia.
  • NormandieNormandie Posts: 4,617
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    KIIS102 wrote: »
    No one has a clue how Flight prices work, people just guess.
    Yes they do. It's called yield management and it's been around for years - really since the airline booking systems and later the GDSs (I worked for one) made it easy.

    One thing worth trying (it won't work if all low priced inventory has been sold) is using a different browser to check flights and / or clearing cookies on the pc. Despite what was declared upthread, some booking engines leave a cookie on your pc with quote details in it and when requesting a re-quote, the booking system reads the cookie and increases the price from that previously quoted.
  • collincncollincn Posts: 650
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    Normandie wrote: »
    Yes they do. It's called yield management and it's been around for years - really since the airline booking systems and later the GDSs (I worked for one) made it easy.

    One thing worth trying (it won't work if all low priced inventory has been sold) is using a different browser to check flights and / or clearing cookies on the pc. Despite what was declared upthread, some booking engines leave a cookie on your pc with quote details in it and when requesting a re-quote, the booking system reads the cookie and increases the price from that previously quoted.

    I said that further up thread, but was told it was rubbish :-D
  • NormandieNormandie Posts: 4,617
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    I saw. ;-)

    There are plenty of articles online about cookies working against you (one). I prove it on a regular basis when checking ferry prices. "This price is only available if you book now..." is the instruction onscreen. And sure enough, when I've sorted my plans and am ready to book a few days later, the price has increased. So I clear my cookies, browsing history, etc, and in that few minutes, miraculously the price has dropped down again. It is a well-known if frequently denied business practice.

    But all the cookie clearing in the world won't help if the product (seat, hotel, car hire rate, ferry space) has genuinely increased increased in price. Which isn't to say it might not drop back when a rush of enquiries / bookings has dropped back. That's the beauty of booking engines - price changes can be made in a meeting and be instituted on screens across the world a few keystrokes later.
  • brentfordpetebrentfordpete Posts: 96
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    It is likely the price will go down again - I would just keep checking every day.

    Quite often, airlines like BA will put out flash sales that only last for about a week or over a weekend to try and get rid of capacity and then prices revert back to normal.

    Just check every day or so and you may get lucky - it is just timing.
  • jsmith99jsmith99 Posts: 20,382
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    One reason why prices can vary widely when you're merely looking for prices, rather than booking, is to do with the number of passengers. If you consider the number of seats at a particular price as being in a bucket , there's a point when there's only one seat left in a bucket.

    If you leave the number of passengers as '1', then you'll be quoted that price. If you then decide to book two or more passengers, then, though there's still one left in the lower bucker, all the seats will be quoted at the price of the next bucket up. It could even be that all the seats in that bucket have been sold in groups of 2+, so you'll be quoted from an even higher bucket.

    Go back to a test with one passenger ... and guess what?

    However, it's easy enough to clear cookies, if you're worried about them. I just run cCleaner, after moving the site from "saved cookies", if appropriate.

    Incidentally, with EasyJet, even if the seats come from the same bucket, the price varies with the number of passengers. The more passengers on a booking, the lower the price.
  • ShappyShappy Posts: 14,531
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    I'm only looking/booking for myself but you've raised some interesting points.

    Unfortunately the prices are still sky high, whichever NYC airport I pick and even if I fly mid week.

    I wonder if it has anything to do with the threat of an Icelandic volcanic eruption? That was announced on Monday and the prices shot up on Tuesday.
  • mark_bmark_b Posts: 854
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    Shappy wrote: »
    I wonder if it has anything to do with the threat of an Icelandic volcanic eruption? That was announced on Monday and the prices shot up on Tuesday.
    I don't know your exact dates but a quick search on skyscanner for the whole of October shows that you can still get cheaper flights in the first week if you are prepared to change, for example at Amsterdam, Paris or Philadelphia. So the volcano is unlikely to be a reason.
  • TUTV ViewerTUTV Viewer Posts: 6,236
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    Shappy wrote: »
    I've been looking at flight prices to New York for travel in about 6 weeks time. For the last week or so the prices have been around £430 but when I went to book this morning, they've jumped up to £700!

    Has anyone else had this happen where the flight price has almost doubled overnight? I've used kayak, travelsupermaket, skyscanner, opodo and individual airline websites to search and they're all showing this doubling!

    I'm not sure whether to wait and see if it goes down again or change my holiday to the week after (when prices are still around £430). It will be inconvenient to change my holiday dates so I'm reluctant to do that.

    If you saw flights at £430 with a decent airline you should have bought them - they were never going to fall at that price.

    Don't forget flights are demand driven. And if you keep hitting the airlines via a number of different sites they'll register strong demand for that date and prices will increase.

    And yes, I've seen it happen regularly. Earlier this year a mate and I were travelling to the US together. One of us starting in Edinburgh, the other at Heathrow. My mate bought the ticket from Edinburgh fractionally before me - the flight price from Heathrow then jumped by £200.

    As an experiment, I tried flying from Biringham instead and managed to get the original price plus £40!

    So my journey was Oxford - BHX - LHR - ORD - LHR - BHX - Oxford
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